On July 30th, members of The DC staff and the African dance community gathered for RAISE YOUR VOICE! for African Dance, the first of The DC’s new initiative, BLOOM – Platform Raising. Through this initiative, over the next 10 months, The DC will be dedicating time and staff to build relationships with 3 different dance communities. The named communities of this pilot year are African, Street and Disabilities dance. We will work together to identify their unique needs and how The DC might help address these needs and elevate each community into a thriving future.

Through our first community gathering with the African dance community, it was made clear that people are passionate practitioners. They hold concerns about the passing on of traditions and equity in promotion and programming. They value the intergenerational, healing, and welcoming nature of African drumming and dancing, which cannot be separated from one another. 

Below are the summarized notes from the meeting: Click HERE. 

If you are a dancer, drummer, teacher, or advocate for African dance, please join us for the next RAISE YOUR VOICE! for African Dance session on Sunday September 11th in Studio 7 at The Dance Complex on Massachusetts Ave. from 4:45-6:00pm, immediately following Joh Camara’s West African class. We hope to hear from more voices and start to identify areas of focus and action steps for moving forward. Thoughts can also be sent to Kara Fili via email, kara@dancecomplex.org.